DeSantis Campaign Press Release - Ron DeSantis on The Big Show with Fred Hoffman on KCPS

"[Nikki Haley] wasn't honest with Iowans when she said she was just kind of joking when she said that. No, she was mocking Iowans when she said the results needed to be corrected."

DES MOINES, Iowa – Ron DeSantis today joined Fred Hoffman on The Big Show on KCPS. The highlights are below.

Listen to the full interview here.

On the importance of getting out to vote in the Iowa Caucuses:

We want your support in the Iowa caucus. We've had huge numbers of people, 10s of 1000s commit to caucus for us. January 15. We'd be honored with your support. Bring friends, family, anyone you can. I know it's going to be cold. But here's what I can promise you, like in Florida, people that voted for me my first primary in '18 for governor. You know, they'll say, 'Man, I knew you'd be good. But you were so much better than I thought' and people that didn't vote for me that primary say, 'Man, that was a bad vote. You've done more than anyone.' So I won't let you down and I will over deliver.

On Nikki Haley's disrespect to Iowa voters:

I think it was very disrespectful to Iowans for her to mock Iowa and say that it's up to another state to quote correct what Iowans decide. And it just shows you, I think, she has not been willing to go to all 99 counties. She has not been willing to really take the questions from Iowans in every corner of the state like we have. But it's also just the fact, I mean, I think it's an admission she recognizes that, as a liberal Republican, she is out of step with the conservative values in Iowa. For example, when she was governor, her number one achievement, so to speak, was to bring in a lot of Chinese investment into the state. She bragged about that. They were the number one state among Republican governors. Now she's trying to say she's going to be tough on China, but that was not her thing. You look at, there was just a video that came out, I think it was yesterday, showing her chastising conservatives, saying that it's wrong to call illegal aliens criminals for breaking into the country. She said it was disrespectful to illegal aliens. Well, what about disrespect to Americans for coming into the country illegally? And she was at a town hall last night, and she wasn't honest with Iowans when she said she was just kind of joking, you know, when she said that. No, she was mocking Iowans when she said the results needed to be corrected. I actually, we did a town hall or back to back town halls in Des Moines on CNN believe it or not, and so I went first and the CNN anchor that did my moderated my townhall was Kaitlan Collins. Now, Nikki Haley was in Iowa I think it was last week, and she was trying to give props to Caitlin Clark for the great basketball, but she said Kaitlan Collins, so I came out, and I gave Kaitlan Collins a Caitlin Clark Jersey shirt. And I said listen, no disrespect to Ms. Collins here, but when the game's on the line, I need a buzzer beater. I'm going with Clark over Collins.

On why he's the strongest candidate on immigration:

He [Trump] did not deport a record number of illegals. In fact, he deported less, believe it or not, than Obama did in his first term. He also said he was not going to allow birthright citizenship for illegal alien children. And yet, he didn't follow through on that. And so I'm going to get it done. Day one we're going to declare it a national emergency. I'm mobilizing resources, including the military, to stop the invasion. People that have come illegally -- we have 8 million under Biden from over 100 different countries, it's a major security threat to this country -- we're going to deport those folks. We're also going to build the wall. I'm going to fund that by charging fees on remittances that people send, workers send overseas to other places, even within our North America. We're going to do that, and that'll fund the border wall. And then we're going to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable. They're flooding this country with fentanyl. It's poisoning our people in record numbers. Tens of thousands of deaths every single year. The cartels have killed more people with fentanyl than all the terrorist groups in the world have killed Americans over the same period of time. And yet, Biden and these people in DC, they just shrug their shoulders, and they allow the carnage to continue. We're going to designate them as foreign terrorist organizations. We're going to treat them as such, including using the US military to put down the cartel. So I mean business on day one. When I tell people, I'm going to do something, you can take it to the bank. I'm going to follow through, and I'm going to get it done. And I think, you know, Donald Trump ran on a lot of this, didn't deliver most of it. Nikki Haley, she's never really been supportive of strong borders. She opposed the border wall. She wants unlimited immigration, no limits on immigration. And then she's attacked conservatives for being disrespectful by saying it's a crime to come into this country illegally. So I'm the only guy that you can trust to actually get the job done.

On his day one priorities as president:

Number one, the border. National emergency, like I mentioned before. Mobilize the resources, stop the invasion. Two, reverse all of Bidenomics, make sure that we get the economy going in a way that is not going to be beset with high prices and high inflation. Three, open up all American energy for production. We need to be energy dominant. I'm going to reverse the Green New Deal, reverse things like electric vehicle mandates, so that the American people have an opportunity to have a standard automobile and the things that we've used to take for granted. We're also going to rein in the administrative state. So day one will be the beginning of bringing this bureaucracy back in line with what the Constitution envision and the founding fathers envisioned, and restoring the government back to its rightful owners, which is we the American people. We do not have four branches of government under our Constitution, yet we've had this massive administrative state, this deep state, that has grown over many decades. You need a strong and disciplined president to reel that in. It's not going to be easy, but that will absolutely begin on day one. And then the fifth thing I would do, I'm the only veteran running for President, I'll be the first president elected since 1988 that has served in a foreign war. I recognize the recruiting crisis in the military, and I recognize how the military has become politicized with woke ideology and social experimentation. I'm going to rip all of that out on day one and restore the military to focusing on mission first.

On how he will combat communist China:

There's three things that we need to do with China. I mean, overall, just recognize China's our top national security threat. That's not what the people in DC think. That's not what even a lot of my competitors think. But they're the only peer competitor that we face. And so one, you need more hard military power in the Indo-Pacific to deter China from realizing its ambitions, not just with Taiwan, but even beyond that first island chain so that they can dominate international commerce in the Pacific, which is going to be the most important economic region over the next 50 years. Second, economic, we are dependent on China for things that are important for our economy. It should have never come to this. So we need to regain our economic independence. We need to re-shore particularly these key industries that our elites have allowed to go over to China. So we're going to build a bigger, better manufacturing base in this country. And we're going to make sure that we're not dependent on China, particularly for mission critical items for national survival. And then finally, we're going to stop Chinese influence here at home. In Florida, I signed legislation banning China from purchasing land. I don't want them buying farmland anywhere in the United States, I don't want them buying land near military bases, none of that. We've kick China out of our universities, these Confucius Institutes. I don't think that they should be involved in any American university. So we're going to curb their influence here to the United States.